Work on Wednesday morning yields wishes of more sleep and maybe even a weekend, and there�s nothing to be done but make that pot of tea and eat your orange from an olive bowl. Why can�t that orange be a clementine? I�d forgotten how troublesome and messy it is to peel and eat an orange without getting it all over that pile of papers that demands immediate attention.

Where have I been? Oh, you know, here and there. Road-tripping with Reb to go poke about the used bookstore a few blocks away from my college apartment. Drooling over the lovely Le Creuset cookware in another nearby shop, wishing for more money, more time and someone for whom to cook every now and then. Maybe if I rent a trailer and pull the house 20 miles to the east, people would come?

I�ve been eating instant udon and steamed carrot chips and watching dull television, but mostly it�s urgent work, Nick Hornby, late night walks on the slick and slushy country roads and research and writing for a non-work project.

Songbook is still enchanting, but the essays about which I�m least giddy have surprisingly been ones in which he attempts to explain the impetus behind some parts of High Fidelity. I guess I don�t want to see the real Oz, after all. That shouldn�t come as such a surprise, I suppose, to someone who historically fixates on the mysterious ideal, but there it is, a fact I decided to face. Get along now.

I wanted to tell you more about the book last night, but I ended up tearing the computer components apart, trying to ascertain why on earth the CPU refused to turn on. The CPU that is not mine. It�s fine now, somehow, though there was that inevitable extra cord hanging around after everything was put back together and was working properly. I found some holes to plug it in, and though nothing changed, I feel I have done the right thing.